Chapter Thirty Eight

Katie woke up after seven hours of sleep, an extended time of two hours compared to her usual five. This she did every weekend since there was no school and also in an attempt to remedy any excess exhaustion her body might have been going through. The things one learns after years of training. They would live and breathe under a system. A warm bath, brushing of her teeth and dressing up later found her taking a warm cup of the ever-coffee in the kitchen.

She sipped her coffee whilst trying to decipher who might have been putting on an act in the students that had been interrogated the day before. Each interrogation played in her mind clear as day as though it was happening in that exact moment. Futile as this attempt at going through the useless information was, she still found herself going through it to find any clues of who the killer might have been.

Aunt Marie walked into the kitchen a few minutes later heading straight for the coffee machine, her hair still a mess and dressed in a bathrobe, "Good morning, sweetie."

"Good morning, Auntie," Katie replied.

Aunt Marie yawned while she poured herself a cup of the hot beverage, "Based on how prepared you look and the thoughtful expression on your face, I can tell you are eager to hear what it is that I have to say to you."

"Yes, that would be correct. You read me quite clearly that it feels scary sometimes…"

"I raised you, Katie. There's almost nothing you can do to surprise me," Aunt Marie said, taking a sip of coffee and savouring the taste as it rolled down her tongue. This was the true definition of a coffee addict and it was known by the entire household that getting between her and her coffee was a mistake of a lifetime.

Katie waited patiently as her aunt took her time to savour the flavours on her palate, "How can someone love a taste that long? Doesn't it get monotonous for you to slurp coffee every morning?" she said.

"How is it that mankind never gets tired of procreation through sex?"

"I rest my case... No need to get too graphic," Katie said, dodging the loose tongue her auntie was about to take advantage of.

"Okay then, let's get to the point now, shall we? Yesterday, we received various strings of information that were meant for you, but you didn't receive them because you were unreachable. The first one was about the autopsy report from the werewolf that died yesterday. There was nothing out of the ordinary from what they could already deduce from the crime scene. There were no signs of a struggle and the throat of the victim was skillfully slit before they realized they were in danger. This means that the person who committed this crime was someone who would not arouse any suspicion of such a heinous crime.

They did, however, find something that was peculiar considering everyone's method of addressing the victim. How well did you know Ash Myster?" she asked.

"Not that well… Just that he was someone he…"

"That pronoun… I guess they were right…" she stopped me mid-sentence.

"What do you mean by that?" Katie asked, her attention peaking.

"Ash… was not a boy…" Aunt Marie said, "It's been rare for female rogues to appear. Every single rogue that's been killed or captured was a male. Those that were female were found to be either infertile because of lack of a uterus or suffering from traumas of rape and sexual harassment. The rogues have a… how do I put this bluntly… disgusting practice of treating the females among them as nothing more than breeders," she explained.

"Disgusting is an understatement for that kind of thing, but then…"

"This does bring up a lot of questions indeed… It was found that in the uterus of fifteen-year-old Ash Myster was an immature foetus that had died not long after her own demise," she said.

"Ash was… pregnant?" the news kept getting more and more shocking. At the age of fifteen, what she was hearing felt like needles in her spine.

"Yes, she was pregnant and not to mention the signs of rape that were found on her. This girl had just escaped what must have been hell by simply pretending to be a boy," Aunt Marie said.

"Ash was still a newcomer in the school which probably meant she was raped before she got into the spy program the rogues are running. I already considered the rogues unforgivable for sending children to spy on hunters, but this is far worse…" Katie's wolf spurred from within her.

"Is there anything else they could tell about the condition of Ash's body and health by the time of his… I mean, her death?" it was difficult to switch between the two prepositions. Ash must have perfected her cover before she went into the mission, making it impossible to identify her gender.

"I wasn't so inclined to how this investigation was going by the time I heard of it and was thinking more of your safety at the point, but… now that I know what Ash went through, I would like you to put more effort into finding the killer and make sure you capture him alive. I have no doubt that once this information reaches the ears of the werewolves, they will be even more vicious than they already were, so be careful when you proceed with this case," Aunt Marie said.

"I will be careful… You mentioned having received a string of messages that were meant for me… Is that all that you were told?" Katie asked, her mind storing the information on the deceased werewolf.

"Oh yeah, there is one more. I was hoping it would help you find out some clues on who the killer might be," she said, "The werewolf that you captured finally woke up. His limbs were rendered useless and he was put through some interrogation to try and get information out of him. He was also a student from the school although he was seventeen and was more experienced than Ash. Interrogating him seemed impossible at first until he said something…

'I won't say much, but I do have a message that I'd like to personally deliver to the pride and Joy of the Hunter Agency, Katie Chase. The look on her face when I tell her… Makes my mouth water just trying to imagine what it would be like…' after that he was laughing hysterically with a maniacal look on his face. Further interrogation and torture methods proved to be useless against him."

This information gave Katie chills as she heard it. "Well then, I guess my first stop will be the Hunter's Agency."

"You're still going even when you know that the information might be useless," she said.

"It might be useless, but as you said, there might be a clue that could lead me to find out who the killer is," she said, grabbing a denim jacket from the rack by the door and slipping it on. "I'll get going. Are the werewolves going to be informed about this?"

"Yes, they have been briefed as well. Don't be surprised when you find them waiting by the Hunter's Agency," Aunt Marie said, "Godspeed, Katie." A reassuring smile in reply to the blessing was the last thing the two shared before Katie left the house. 'I'll find your killer, Ash. You can count on that,' her resolve burned bright as the thought ran through her mind spurring her to get moving faster and find the killer before they had the chance to make a clean getaway.

Aunt Marie was starting to feel sad as she felt the time she'd been living in come to an end. She watched Katie run out of the house, oblivious to what was happening. She hadn't even asked where her husband had been the whole time. It wasn't surprising for Katie to think that Tom was simply sleeping. The truth was… her husband hadn't stepped into their house since the morning the day before. 'Oh, Katie, you never asked why we never let you refer to us as mother and father… It was simply because… we didn't want you to anger your true parents, on the day when they came for you.

.........…..

"Cole, did you wash your face as I asked you to?" Jason's voice cut through Cole's sharp hearing stirring him awake as he dosed at the dinner table in the dining room. He'd been rudely awoken at six in the morning by his subordinate for something that was supposedly important. The lack of clues to what it was was still unknown to him which made it hard to take the guy seriously. After having struggled to find sleep the night before trying to figure out what Katie couldn't tell her, he had fallen asleep quite late and was currently sleep-deprived.

He'd washed his face to try and wipe the sleep from it, but the moment the last drop of water dried, sleep was back to haunt him. "We received information yesterday that you might want to listen to. The Hunter's Association reported what it is that they found out from the autopsy," this was enough to chase all the last remnants of sleep from the Royal's eyes.

"Is there something we didn't know about the way Ash was killed?" Cole asked.

"No, not really," Caden said, taking a seat opposite from him, placing a cup of tea in front of him, "but there were some other disturbing bits of information that they were able to discover that we did not know about Ash."

"Oh, and what would that be?"

"The starting point of all that commotion would be that Ash was not a boy and rather was a girl…" the information resounded in Cole's mind after hearing it. Ash must have trained hard to be able to conceal her gender all that well, but the reasons for going to such great lengths were the ones that he now wanted to know. His wolf growled at the number of possibilities that one would have had to conceal their gender.

It was known that finding a female rogue was next to impossible and that if they were ever found, they were either infertile or on the brink of death from rape. On very rare occasions, sterile female rogues were found, but their bodies would be toned and littered with battle scars all over from the intense training they no doubt had to go through to pull their weight. There was no doubt in Cole's mind that he was about to hear the news that would rank among the most disturbing bits of information that his mind could fathom.